Great Barrier Reef: Fitzroy Island

Zach’s pick: The Great Barrier Reef

Australia and New Zealand were both Zach’s picks. However, he was very specific and his goal was to see the Great Barrier Reef. To make this as simple as possible, we booked several days at Fitzroy Island, about 45 minutes by high-speed boat from Cairns. Our stay for the weekend cost more than our week stay at the resort in Thailand but I suppose there is a price for convenience right?

The high speed ferry, which was really quite pokey, had barely docked before Bill and the kids were in the water. They were all so excited to check out the Great Barrier Reef and good thing they hustled because who knows how much longer it will be around.

The signs posted all over the resort at Fitzroy along with the staff warning people about it being jellyfish season caused Bill and the kids to rent stinger suits for our stay. Zach had many questions for the dive shop guy about the invisible jellyfish that are lethal and are about the size of a quarter. Mainly he wanted to know how they knew what size it was if you couldn’t see it and how you knew it was what killed you when, again, you couldn’t see it. I’m not sure the guy working had smoked enough pot for the day to handle the flurry of Zach questions thrown his way. We moved on and they lived on the wild side and hit the beach, deadly jellyfish and all.

It was a fun couple of days, they snorkeled a ton, paddle boarded, went out on the water trampoline, swam during fish feeding, went out to Hidden Beach to snorkel (I enjoyed the reef from the comfort of the glass bottom boat), enjoyed a couple movies at the little theater onsite, enjoyed the pool and swim up bar and watched every possible sunset.

Zach loved it all, and gave it a two thumbs up!